Kept By the Kingpin (London Mafia Bosses #12)

Chapter 1

CALLIE

I’m rushed off my feet. It’s a normal, chaotic morning at the hospital.

“Hi!” Smiling, I peek around the curtain to the patient I’ve been told to dress their wound, and there’s a male thundercloud, half in a dark-blue suit that’s rumpled but still looks amazing in a way that says it can only have been expensive.

His jacket is discarded, and his white shirt has been ripped open at the shoulder.

He has a short grey beard peppered with black.

His silver hair is in disarray, and his mouth, oh wow, his mouth is a line of perfect irritation expressed with soft pink lines. He looks absolutely furious.

And gorgeous. Mature, with darkness and authority.

He’s surrounded by younger men, mostly in a variety of black T-shirts, and a couple in suits. They seem exhausted.

The man on the bed looks up, right into my face, and it’s a jolt like lightning.

Electricity crackles in the air between us.

His blue eyes are the colour of the midday sky.

His jaw is square, and his nose is straight, with elegance a nose has no business having.

Every part of his face is almost a cliché of being the ideal, with just enough character added for flavour.

He’s older, for sure, but the sort of older that has grown into himself.

As though when he were younger he’d have been too shiny and perfect, but age has made him more compelling.

Does everyone feel like this when they look at this man? I’m caught in a freeze-frame. I couldn’t move even if a bomb went off. There’s something about him. I’m utterly captured.

“Who are you?” he snaps.

For a second, I can’t close my mouth or speak, so the correct answer is “a fish”. I can’t stop staring at this man, and I have zero thoughts in my head. Nothing. Nada.

Then I see that the ugly circular wound on his upper right arm.

From a bullet.

Ope.

I take a deep breath, and put on my cheeriest, don’t kill me, expression. “I’m Callie. I’m the nurse who’ll help you with dressing that wound.”

Patients tend to respond better to me when I make the effort to be happy. Especially when they’ve been shot at.

And are like a bear with a sore head.

“Hurry up about it,” he growls.

Or, arm, as the case may be.

I take in his wound with a practiced eye, figuring out what I’ll need. “I’ll be back in a minute with the dressings.”

“I don’t have all day.” He scowls.

I clearly misread that moment between us. He’s a total grump.

“I need to get items from the store cupboard,” I explain brightly, and draw away, pulling the curtain around again.

“This is totally unnecessary,” he grumbles, just before I’m out of earshot.

But he’s still there when I return with all the things I need, and one of the younger men is standing facing the man on the bed, with his chin up and his arms crossed, as I nip through the closed curtain. “You passed out, Sir. What were we supposed to do?”

“I was fine,” the older man grunts, and the younger man gulps, visibly nervous.

Or scared? Why?

Hmm. Am I really asking that question? This is London. There’s only one type of person who gets shot and then has a gaggle of men around him.

A mafia boss. But they’re usually super rich? They don’t need to go to normal hospitals like this.

“Our medic was dead, you were down and looked like you were about to die, and we made the call that we needed you to live.” The young man is really trying to hold his own.

For a second, I stand there like a lemon, staring. But collecting my wits, I approach the bedside of the patient. His men—that seems an appropriate term for them—part respectfully to allow me access.

“And the doctor did all those tests, and there’s nothing wrong with me,” my patient says impatiently.

That’s good to know. I take a covert glance at the name band on his wrist as I sort the plastic-wrapped dressings. Reid Maddox. He has tattoos of skulls, fire, wings, and columns that run all the way down his arm, and the bullet wound goes right through a snake’s body.

“Not being medical professionals, we didn’t know that, and for thirty seconds you weren’t able to tell us you were fine, and we were worried. Also ‘fine’ apart from the new piercing in your arm, Sir.”

“You’re funny.” Reid Maddox rolls his eyes, and then shifts to regard me.

I snap on gloves and then murmur, “Sorry,” before I move his arm to give me better access. From the way the younger man sucks in a nervous breath, I half expect my patient to smack me, but he just watches me from under dark brows, giving me a curt nod when our gazes meet.

He’s muscled. Strong. And I notice other scars amongst the stark tattoos on his skin.

I have the totally insane urge to stroke his arm like he’s a terrifying big-cat as I clean up the excess blood further away from the wound.

I don’t though, focusing on the parts that the doctor ignored, presumably because it was beneath them.

“This might hurt a bit,” I say as I have to scrub some dried blood. If it’s left there, the dressing won’t stick properly, and I have no desire for Reid Maddox or any of his associates to come after me.

He barks a laugh and looks at me. But his eyes have changed. Softened around the edges.

“What’s your name?” His tone has lost the abrasive edge.

“Callie.” I point at my badge and don’t mention that I’ve already told him.

“Callie Flowers,” he reads, and a warm shiver goes down my back.

“I’m Reid Maddox. It’s good to meet you.”

I think I’m probably supposed to recognise his name, but I’m too busy with my job as a nurse, and I prefer baking and reading to gossip magazines about the London mafia bosses.

I give him a genuine smile, and if my heart skips a beat when his gaze lingers on my mouth? Well. That’s not my fault. Being close to a man like this, even injured, would make any woman’s pulse flutter. And it’s not as though I have lots of experience to give me immunity to his charm.

Even a very gruff sort like Reid’s.

He watches me carefully as I finish up the extra cleaning, put a bit of packing into the wound, then place the dressing. I focus and spend a moment angling everything so the skin can’t get caught, and it won’t shift when he moves his arm.

It takes a few minutes longer than other nurses would take, but I like to do a good job, and with Reid’s blue eyes intent on me, I’m maybe a bit more diligent than I usually would be.

“Thank you.”

I look up at his face, and he’s turned his head, so our lips are only a matter of inches apart. And my stomach does an inconvenient flip at how attractive he is. That beard. I wonder how it would feel on my cheek. Under my fingertips. On my inner thighs.

I flush red hot at the inappropriate thought.

He is a patient. I am a professional. This isn’t the sort of thought I indulge.

I stand, perhaps a bit too fast, and sway as the blood whooshes from my head.

“Easy,” Reid says with a hint of amusement, reaching out and bolstering me with his uninjured arm.

“Sorry,” I mutter, even more embarrassed. “Nearly took you out. Come to the hospital, end up squashed by a nurse.”

“Callie.”

His voice is so commanding that I freeze without my own volition.

“Stop it. It’s okay.”

I nod, because I don’t trust my voice to emerge sounding normal.

“Good girl.”

Oh… my… I can’t breathe. My eyes are as big as the Atlantic. He just called me a good girl? I thought that was something you said to golden doodles who brought back their ball, but it’s shocking how nice that small bit of praise feels as it washes over me.

Good girl.

New kink unlocked.

I’m such a dork. It’s not like I haven’t treated handsome men before, and I’m not usually affected by money or notoriety. I don’t care about those things, though Reid clearly has both. Reid’s hand on my arm, steadying me, is only a light touch, but it’s…

I grab up the discarded plastic packets, and he releases my arm.

“That’s it. All done,” I gasp out. I should get away from this man. He brings out something in me that I didn’t realise was there.

“Get the car,” he directs one of his men, totally unconcerned, presumably unaware I’ve been having a semi-religious experience over here from being called a good girl.

“You’ll need to keep the wound clean and change the dressing.” I rattle off more instructions at the speed of a nervous child doing a reading for school assembly, clutching the waste wrappers to me. “Do you have any questions?”

By the time I’ve finished, my cheeks aren’t burning. More lightly toasting.

I’m under control. I just have to get out of here having done my job and avoid making an idiot of myself.

“I do have one question,” he continues. “This cleaning and such sounds like a lot of work. You have gentle hands, and they,” he indicates his men, who are watching us with varying degrees of fear and anxiety, “do not.”

I blink.

“I’d like you to come and work for me, and manage this.” He nods down at his now covered wound.

You could knock me over with a feather. He doesn’t even phrase it as a question, as though it’s a given that I’m going to give up my career to be his nursemaid.

“I’ll provide a generous salary. And as you may have overheard,” he shoots a dark glare at the one of his men who stood up to him, “We’ve recently had an opening in our health team that needs filling.”

The doctor who was killed.

Presumably, in the same gun fight that Reid was injured in.

I know working in a hospital can have its moments, but I have never once seen gunfire in here. I’d be insane to agree, and yet I don’t immediately say no. There’s something very compelling about this dangerous, growly man.

He’s probably twice my age. The grey of his hair suggests he’s over forty.

“A very generous salary, with a starting bonus of twenty thousand if you’ll come with me now.”

I gape. For a second, I’m tempted. Honestly, compelled by this man’s undeniable if grumpy attraction.

But then my mother’s words echo in my head. Your father is like all men.